"Hannibal Rising" is a prequel of sorts, about how the killer Hannibal Lecter ("The Silence of the Lambs") came to be. Novelist and screenwriter Thomas Harris cobbles together a theory that blends equal parts nature and nurture. In the book, he was able to make a point that Hannibal was the scion of an illustrious, warrior-rich Lithuanian aristocratic family that was sheared down by shrapnel in World War II, orphaning the child and his younger sister. Soon some scummy lads arrive, battlefield parasites who loot, torture and -- after the arrival of heavy snow -- eat. Hannibal (Aaron Thomas plays the child) survives; his sister, Mischa (Helena Lia Tachovska), does not.

He then decides upon a life's work: They ate her, so I shall eat them!

The movie streamlines all that, as it does much of the rest of Harris's book. It's a shame, because it results in the movie's fundamental flaw -- the one-dimensionality of Hannibal.

Hannibal is a pure killing machine, and one never senses a struggle in him between the dark and the light. It doesn't help that the young French actor Gaspard Ulliel has clearly been cast for his face. It's a face made for eating, long of jaw, sharp of feature, glittery and cunning of eye, smileless except for a post-kill smirk. It works as a mask, but it never expresses.

Thus, a lot of what happens fails to make any emotional sense. The movie boasts great spectacle: Stuka vs. tank, Gong Li vs. her too-tight satin robe, Hannibal vs. the five freebooters who chop-sueyed his li'l sister, some cool guns and two or three very nice, rosy-orange propane explosions. As a treat for us uber-depravos, it even features several examples of my longtime pulp favorite, the beheading.

But it's as cold as a nickel left in the snow since December.

-- Stephen Hunter (Feb. 9, 2007)

Contains nasty gore, grisly violent content, profanity and sexual references.